The New Shadow by JRR Tolkien: an aborted story of the Fourth Age

I begin this thread with a copy of a post from another thread about what we might commission Tolkien to write, were he still alive. It turned out that he wrote an aborted sequel to The Lord of the Rings. Details below:

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Narsil said:

Tolkien actually started a story about the Fourth Age..about a 100 years after the War of the Ring. Supposedly it had something to do with palace corruption and the Gondorians getting bored and stirring up trouble, trying to overthrow the king, etc, etc. I believe Tolkien abandoned it because it wasn't a very compelling story. Perhaps the very absence of a great evil, a dark lord of some sort, made it seem all rather ordinary.

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Can you direct us to something that can give more details?

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Well, I liked my own advice so much that I actually took it! I googled around, and this is what I found in a Tolkien chat site:

King of the North

This has been on my mind recently, are there any works by Tolkien concerning the 4th Age?

Fingolfin II

There was one abandoned work by Tolkien set in Gondor during the Fourth Age, after Aragorn died (during Eldarion's reign). It's only about 12 pages long and can be found in Part Three of The Peoples of Middle-Earth (HoME 12) under the title 'The New Shadow'. Basically it's about a couple of Gondorian kids who are bored and start acting like orcs and creating havoc. Tolkien disliked the story and discontinued it, as he didn't see it able to be portrayed as anything but a 'cheap thriller'. Worth a read, though. In fact, I think you can even read it somewhere online. Hope that helps .

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Googling around some more (using "The New Shadow" as keywords), I came up with this:

The New Shadow by J.R.R. Tolkien
His sequel to The Lord of the Rings

Tolkien started his sequel to The Lord of the Rings a number of times but never got very far. The links below are scanned images of the pages of the book.

The story begins one hundred and five years after the fall of the Dark Tower and is set in Gondor. Tolkien wrote about the story:

"I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the downfall of Sauron, but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with Men it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace and justice and prosperity would become discontented and restless - while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors - like Denethor or worse. I found that even so there was an outcrop of revolutionary plots, about a centre of secret Satanistic religion; while Gondorian boys were playing at being Orcs and going around doing damage. I could have written a 'thriller' about the plot and its discovery and overthrow - but it would be just that. Not worth doing."

(You can actually read the fragment at http://www.fountain.btinternet.co.uk/tolkien/.)

You can do your own research at http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Tolkien+new+shadow

I think this short passage reveals much insight into Tolkien's view of man, and of Christianity, and could be the basis of quite a discussion!

Well, I have read the fragment (at http://www.fountain.btinternet.co.uk/tolkien/.), and it leaves me quite chilled. Tolkien seems to say that Men are inherently inclined to evil, peace is not enough for them, and in times of calm and peace, the Old Evil will grow again, an inherent function of Man's nature. Given enough time, we forget what we had to pay to keep evil down and will therefore have to pay the price again and again. (I offer the political situation in the world today as proof.)

I myself came to this conclusion long ago: that evil is a weed inherent in Man that pops up under any condition, and good is a Man-created garden that needs constant tending.

Barley

That's...chilling. And fascinating. Thanks a lot for the link!

I am glad Tolkien didn't continue with this idea. It wouldn't have been very happy reading.

I think it is more interesting to know his views on certain genres of literature.

Snaga said:

I am glad Tolkien didn't continue with this idea. It wouldn't have been very happy reading.

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Indeed, neither is the Silmarillion! Had he continued with the new story, it would have been very revealing — as in fact are the twelve pages or so that he did write. In fact what he wrote is pretty much on the money of how mankind has in fact behaved, and by projection will behave. Just those twelve pages are scarily prophetic.

(One thing is interesting about the story: evidently the orcs were so decimated after the War of the Ring that even after a hundred years, they seem only to be a legend. And if man has no orcs, he will pretend they exist...)

Barley

Barley, you don't find the Sil to be happy reading? Certainly, there are many woes and ill fortunes to be encountered therein, but juxtaposed to each one of them is an event, concept or deed of beauty and compassion that uplifts and comforts. Regardless of Man's quick satiety with good, our race will continue to do good, even though it is constantly marred by evil. Don't you think?

Ithrynluin said:

Barley, you don't find the Sil to be happy reading? Certainly, there are many woes and ill fortunes to be encountered therein, but juxtaposed to each one of them is an event, concept or deed of beauty and compassion that uplifts and comforts. Regardless of Man's quick satiety with good, our race will continue to do good, even though it is constantly marred by evil. Don't you think?

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Alas, m'dear, I don't find Sil happy reading atall atall. As I've said in prior posts, it is ultimately about "the long defeat." It's about things going wrong from the very beginning, with Melkor almost immediately trying to dominate the Creation Music, and things going downhill from there. It can be taken as "God can't control evil." There is not one sentence of real humor in the entire saga.

We see Melkor and Sauron forever working evil over innocents. It shows the very first elves getting waylaid by Melkor and taken off to be corrupted into orcs, and we know what came of that!

It shows the later elves to be just as greedy, vengeful and warlike as any man or orc, swearing irresponsible oaths and suffering the consequences for generations.

In fact I would say: if Tolkien had written only that, his name as a novelist would have been long faded into dust right now because of the work's interminable dreariness. It has moments of beauty, but it is a work — at least to me — of almost suffocating pessimism.

Then came LOTR with its satsifying denouement.

And then came "The New Shadow," and even Tolkien, apparently, sensed he was beginning to plunge into a pessimism so black and terrifying to him that he suddenly stopped and dropped the whole project.

So I've had to change my mind about Tolkien. Had I not known about "The New Shadow," I would have gone on thinking that his basic philosophy was "there's some good worth fighting for." Now I'm not so sure. Now I think it may be "Evil sprouts like a weed in the heart of Man, if there is no one to make sure that good prevails." Indeed, human history bears me out.

Barley

Snaga said:

I am glad Tolkien didn't continue with this idea. It wouldn't have been very happy reading.

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On the contrary, happy or not, I would have loved to read another Tolkien book, especially a fourth age one. Dreary as it may be, I would imagine it to have a similar moral as The Silmarillion; an initial paradise falling into debauchery due to the fallen status of man, with the evil finally defeated after the humility of the races and the brave deeds of the few faithful.

It sounds amazing.

Barley,

I think you are being a little too pessimistic about poor old JRRT. I think his view is that there is evil in the world and one has to be always on the watch for it and fight it. If one does that, the evil can be defeated. Even in The Sil, Melkor/Morgoth is eventually defeated and banished. Yes, Sauron survived, but without him there could be no LOTR. And I agree with you, that it is LOTR that secures Tolkien's place in literature, not The Sil. Also from the standpoint of a writer, there pretty much has to be some sort of conflict for a story to exist. How successful would a novel be if it started out with everyone living happily, they all continued to live happily with nothing but happy and joyous events and then ended with eveyone living happily ever after? It would require some extraordinary writing to pull off something like that.

Barley said:

Alas, m'dear, I don't find Sil happy reading atall atall. As I've said in prior posts, it is ultimately about "the long defeat."

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I think you are either misunderstanding the concept of good and evil in Arda, or not seeing the big picture of it all.

And whose long defeat is that? If we're gonna use the word ultimately - then certainly Morgoth's and that of evil. If evil had been stifled by Eru before even having the chance to take shape and action, where would free will figure into all this? There would be none. With the presence of evil, good is enriched and becomes greater than prior to the 'intervention' of evil.

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So what's the big denouement of the LOTR that is not present in the Sil? What is so endlessly depressing about the Sil that could not also be claimed about the LOTR?

The Sil ends with the demise of Melkor.

The LOTR ends with the downfall of Sauron.

So, both stories end with the ruin of a great supernatural evil. (Actually, if we're gonna nit pick about it, the Sil ends with the overthrow of Melkor, a being supremely greater than Sauron, and therefore the victory of good over Morgoth should be infinitely greater and more joyful than that over Sauron, eh?)

TLOTR is the Sil on a several times lesser scale. The enemy is lesser, but so are his opponents diminished from their primeval strength in the Elder Days. Therefore, I think it is fairly safe to assume that the bloodshed and battles will also be lesser quantity-wise, with less casualties (naturally) than in the wars of Beleriand. Yet, TLOTR contains much the same elements present in the Sil - deceit, betrayal, lust, folly, willful and unyielding behaviour, contempt,...etc. In contrast, both of these works contain a matching or superior number of antonyms for each of these 'evil' emotions, and finally, good always prevails, and the villains (at least the more intelligent ones) are aware of that in one way or another but fail or decline to change the error of their ways.

One of the few really big differences between the LOTR and the Sil is the style these books are written in. The former is much more detailed and more easily understood, while the latter is quite condensed and written using such language as to conjure up an ancient aura of ages long past and the very beginnings of the world/universe. Now you may like or dislike either of these for your own reasons, but there is no sense in claiming one is surpassingly more depressing than the other.

Ithrynluin said:

I think you are either misunderstanding the concept of good and evil in Arda, or not seeing the big picture of it all.

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Oh I think I understand it all just fine, even if my understanding differs from yours.

Barley

And it is my opinion that your understanding of good and evil in Arda is on a slight collision course with the many statements provided by the professor in the various tomes of Middle-earth.

Indeed, Eru says in the first pages of the Sil: "And thou, Melkor, that ye may see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined."The moral of Sil is not hopelessness, but the consequences of evil. Almost from the very first we see the eventual hope: the New Music, when everything is set right.

Annaheru said:

Indeed, Eru says in the first pages of the Sil: "And thou, Melkor, that ye may see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined."

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How could it be otherwise, if Eru (or God) is going to be defined as omnipotent/omniscient? There's no choice: that statement must be made, else it must be conceded that "God" — Eru, whoever — is other than perfect, and in letting evil loose, let things get out of hand. When Eru created Melkor, he either created him knowing exactly what he was going to do as part of the plan, or he didn't, and made a cosmic flub. But if he knew that Melkor was going to unleash all this destruction why was everyone so upset about it? It was supposed to happen, yet they all act as if it was an unforeseen unplanned-for calamity.

This is the very thing I have against the idea of a "God" who is all-good. It leads to all sorts of rationales for the existence of evil, as if both good and evil were inherent features of a Reality created by an all-good all-loving God. The best we can do with that is to say, "Well, we don't know God's cosmic purposes." The fact is, we don't KNOW whether God exists or not. So then we say, "Well, all the evil's done by the devil and all the good's done by God." These are the conclusions drawn by the men who first wrote the holy books of the world. Such ideas, methinks, have held us back for the last 5,000 years.

This is one of the great problems with Western religion. That's why I lean to Buddhism. I am a "devout Buddhist agnostic!" But this is all way off topic.

Getting back to "The New Shadow:" I believe that had Tolkien gone ahead with it, he would have written something totally black and defeatist, without hope, something along the lines of Mankind being on a one-way road to its final inevitable self-created destruction. (Indeed, he left the briefest passing hint of it in LOTR. Read the first lines of my signature.)

He didn't want to confront what was about to bubble up into his consciousness, and he dropped it like a hot rock. He sensed a revelation coming about the future of man and suppressed it for the sake of his own peace of mind. "He smelt the old Evil and knew it for what it was."

Barley

Ah, but within Tolkien's mythos we do know that there is a perfect God. That's the point. As to the purpose of evil in ME: the failure of evil to change Eru's end-purpose is reason enough.


As to TNS, I really don't see how we can say it points to 'doom and gloom'- JRR never finished it. In both the Sil and LoTR we pass from the high to the low and then see a partial restoration, a revival (if you will), that will ultimately descend another level until we reach the Final Battle and the New Song. TNS continues this theme. We know that Tolkien became more interested in the language (Quenya) in his later years, returning to his original purpose in creating ME. If he had really felt the need to finish this story good would have triumphed. In reference to LoTR he said "foresight had failed", and he abandoned the tale for a time. In TNS he looked at the darkness and stopped. What if the manuscript for LoTR had stopped at the beginning of bk3? Gandalf dead, Boromir dead, Merry and Pippin taken. Or at the end of bk4? That would offer a horizon every bit as dark as TNS.

Barley said:

Getting back to "The New Shadow:" I believe that had Tolkien gone ahead with it, he would have written something totally black and defeatist, without hope, something along the lines of Mankind being on a one-way road to its final inevitable self-created destruction. (Indeed, he left the briefest passing hint of it in LOTR. Read the first lines of my signature.)

He didn't want to confront what was about to bubble up into his consciousness, and he dropped it like a hot rock. He sensed a revelation coming about the future of man and suppressed it for the sake of his own peace of mind. "He smelt the old Evil and knew it for what it was."

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Instead of all these frantic and apocalyptical reasons, how about we simply chalk it up to something less sensational, such as that the professor simply didn't see much potential in the story. Seems much more reasonable to me.

I also cannot understand what is so shockingly gloomy and depressing about The New Shadow, and moreover what is the great unspeakable revelation made apparent in this unfinished work. With the demise of Sauron, the last 'supernatural' evil was vanquished. But did anyone expect this to be the end of all evil, that it would suddenly be swept under the rug and gone forever? The seeds of evil that Melkor implanted into the fabric of Arda would ever sprout anew, and in the Fourth Age and onwards, evil would be found in the hearts of Men. By defying and successfully battling it, Man would learn to fend for himself and become enriched in the process.

Ithrynluin said:

Instead of all these frantic and apocalyptical reasons, how about we simply chalk it up to something less sensational, such as that the professor simply didn't see much potential in the story. Seems much more reasonable to me.

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I have to agree. For reasons I can't quite put my finger upon, one of my immediate responses to the fragment is that it "feels" (if I can put it that way) like the kind of tale Raymond E. Feist would write (more "modern" or "contemporary" in tone, perhaps?). And I don't think Tolkien would have been interested in writing the kind of fantasy that Feist writes.

P.S. Don't get me wrong: I enjoy Feist almost as much as I enjoy Tolkien.

Annaheru said:

Ah, but within Tolkien's mythos we do know that there is a perfect God. That's the point

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You may be satisfied with a perfect God who can't control his own creation, but I ain't!

As to TNS, I really don't see how we can say it points to 'doom and gloom'- JRR never finished it. In both the Sil and LoTR we pass from the high to the low and then see a partial restoration, a revival (if you will), that will ultimately descend another level until we reach the Final Battle and the New Song. TNS continues this theme....In TNS he looked at the darkness and stopped. What if the manuscript for LoTR had stopped at the beginning of bk3? Gandalf dead, Boromir dead, Merry and Pippin taken. Or at the end of bk4? That would offer a horizon every bit as dark as TNS.

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What you say is every bit as valid conjecture as is mine — but I think mine's more fun...

Barley

Ithrynluin said:

Instead of all these frantic and apocalyptical reasons, how about we simply chalk it up to something less sensational, such as that the professor simply didn't see much potential in the story. Seems much more reasonable to me.

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But not nearly as much fun!

I also cannot understand what is so shockingly gloomy and depressing about The New Shadow, and moreover what is the great unspeakable revelation made apparent in this unfinished work. With the demise of Sauron, the last 'supernatural' evil was vanquished. But did anyone expect this to be the end of all evil, that it would suddenly be swept under the rug and gone forever? The seeds of evil that Melkor implanted into the fabric of Arda would ever sprout anew, and in the Fourth Age and onwards, evil would be found in the hearts of Men. By defying and successfully battling it, Man would learn to fend for himself and become enriched in the process.

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That's not fair, you're making too much sense! Anyway, those were my reactions to reading the fragment, and I have no reason to mistrust them. So what I say is more about me than about Tolkien, eh? However, taking a look at human history so far, both past and present, I believe Tolkien caught a glimpse of our fate and wanted nothing to do with it.

And to AV: Good to see you are posting again! But, knowing nothing about Feist, I haven't the slightest idea of what you're getting at.

Barley